


Every Night

by Maiika



Category: The Amberlough Dossier Series - Lara Elena Donnelly
Genre: Cyril POV, Early Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Suggestive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 19:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiika/pseuds/Maiika
Summary: A week in, and Cyril knows Aristide will be his damnation.Aristide is also his salvation.AriCy





	Every Night

**Author's Note:**

> After reading this series, I HAD to have some early relationship Cyril/Ari content, so I wrote this little fic. Tried to stay true to canon as much as possible, though probably filling in some details here with my personal headcanons. I want to thank Sifl and on-kamis-green-earth for beta reading this fic for me, and especially Lara Elena Donnelly for writing such an amazing story!

The air of the club was thick with sweat, perfume, and smoke, but Cyril couldn’t get the remembrance of the lead performer’s heady cologne off his tongue; the lithe movements on stage stroked the memory of how it felt with his throat wrapped tight by his silk tie fisted in those fingers that now traced the curves of bare skin featured beneath the spotlight. Cyril’s body burned with the tantalizing memory of lacking oxygen paired with his touch. He remembered pleasure greater than any pain he’d ever felt, and he’d felt quite a bit. He had the fresh scar to prove it.

Now, those red lacquered fingernails glistened as they danced under the spotlight. Aristide Makrikosta’s amplified, smoky voice carried to soothe Cyril’s ears at the back of the room. His hooded eyes traveled blindly in Cyril’s direction, his lips pulling back to show one dogtooth in a foxy smile, just as they had the night before, just as they had every night prior this week. 

The delicate wave of his fingers and stuttered command for silence, intended for all the audience in the Bee, held Cyril’s undivided attention and made him marvel at how Aristide managed the appeal so effortlessly. 

Makrikosta was far from the first Cyril had seen laying on the charm to a degree it could capture a room. It was an act anyone could master with training; it didn’t require a spotlight. Cyril himself used the skill on occasion, but utilized it less now that most of his best work came from behind a desk. But the way Aristide went about it was unnatural. He was magnetic.

Cyril wasn’t supposed to be here, and yet here he sat again at the back corner of the Bee, where he knew he was less likely to be noticed by everyone _but_ the performer he’d marked. 

He didn’t care that he wasn’t _supposed_ to do this. He was onto something here, something more than a good knock. As long as Aristide continued with his business unawares of Cyril’s motivation for seeking him, Cyril would continue this forbidden association until he gleaned how deeply Aristide was sunk into the illegal smuggling business around this cabaret. If he was clocked, Cyril could always pull out and tell Culpepper it was mere coincidence that the man who’d caught his eye across a taxi line a week ago was _also_ involved in the smuggling operation he was most certainly not investigating in the field. Whether or not she’d buy it was another story, but not his problem.

If Cyril was honest with himself, which he could rarely afford to be, he was in this for the recreational perks more than anything. If Aristide was in the position Cyril suspected he was, Cyril didn’t care to do his job. He preferred to ignore that aspect of Aristide. A master of the hounds had no business shucking oysters with a man whose lavish lifestyle likely was afforded more by the underground tar trade than his impressive acts on the cabaret stage. Cyril’s career could face massive penalties for this mistake, but then again, Cyril always liked to live on the edge.

There was no sharper edge in Amberlough than Aristide Makrikosta.

The angry scar across Cyril’s chest itched, pulling him from his thoughts as he substituted the impulse to scratch at his belly with a reach for his straights. In his pocket, he found the faithful pack and pulled it. Within seconds, without peeling his gaze from Aristide’s painted ruby lips flapping beneath the spotlight, Cyril had the straight burning and pressed between his lips. The taste and smell of cigarettes was pungent on his tongue. He knew Ari would complain when he tasted the smoke, but Ari could stroll off with his complaints. Cyril would give him plenty worse to complain about when Ari brought him back to his place after the performance.

The spiteful looks on the envying would-be-suitors’ faces made Cyril smug all the way out to the hack outside the Bee which would deliver them to Ari’s flat. It always felt good to know _his_ was the only card Ari looked forward to receiving from Tito’s collection every night, not because Cyril was possessive of Ari or expected the same of him, but because it meant Cyril _excited_ Ari as much as Ari excited him. There was more than burning physical attraction between them. It was the rush of danger, the push of pleasure, the mild acts of violence in between the risks of secrets exposed. 

When Cyril would drift to sleep in Ari’s arms, he never actually slept. He wouldn’t sleep beside a smuggler; couldn’t sleep. His instincts screamed that Ari had figured him out by now, though he shouldn’t have. Cyril could never be too cautious. If professional secrets were to be tightly guarded, personal feelings needed to be held even closer. Sleep was no excuse to drop his guard. Pleasure was no excuse. He had a responsibility to bring this man in for his crimes, and one day, he thought as he nuzzled into the scent of greasepaint in Ari’s soft, dark curls, he would.

But not today.

Today, he wanted to taste Ari again. To press his lips to that flaccid length and feel it harden for him. 

So he did.

In the morning, dressed in his suit freshly-pressed by Ilse and sat at the table with his morning coffee and paper, with Ari observing across the table but acting aloof, Cyril decided he’d had enough of this domestic charade for one day.

He pulled out his straights, lighting one and placing it between his lips before saying, “Well, I’m off.”

He swept out of his chair and grabbed his briefcase without waiting for a response, but damn Ari, he had to always have his way. Cyril’s free hand was seized in a strong grip, tugged until he pressed against the soft silk of Aristide’s colorful robe. As he casted his eyes down, Ari glared up at him, baring his teeth. Daring him to stay.

Cyril tugged his hand loose from that hot grasp and sneered. “Can’t be l-l-late for work, _darling_.”

The flash in Aristide’s dark eyes was clear, full of contempt and offense. It was exactly what Cyril wanted, exactly why he’d chosen to throw those words so frequently spoken and sputtered by Ari right back at him.

“Fine,” Ari huffed, reaching for his coffee and turning his eyes away from Cyril. He crossed his waxed legs beneath the hem riding up on his open robes before Cyril forced himself to turn for the door. “Tell me, Cyril.”

Cyril stopped short. There was a chill in Ari’s voice now, an intent that one would never hear from Aristide Makrikosta onstage or when he charmed his admirers from high society. This was the Ari Cyril didn’t want to know coming out to show his ugly teeth. When Cyril turned to look Ari’s way, Ari’s porcelain coffee mug was pressed to his lips.

His intense eyes narrowed over the rim behind a swirling plume of steam. “What is it you d-d-do, again?”

Cyril grabbed his hat from the rack by the door, shrugged into the coat Ilse opened for him. “I don’t believe I told you.”

“No,” Ari said as Cyril turned and opened the door, “I don’t believe you have.”

Ari knew. Cyril couldn’t play this game anymore. And yet he would.

Because something about his time spent with Ari was sweet and addictive as much as it was caustic and deranged. Like with most drugs, the addiction would win over reason. 

When it came to Ari, Cyril couldn’t get enough.

He left, slamming the door behind him, _knowing_. He would return to the Bumble Bee Cabaret later that night to watch the show and present his card, and every night after, the perpetual moth to Ari’s ostentatious flame.


End file.
